Breath of fresh air in the biblioblogosphere

Ahh, you gotta love the Annoyed Librarian. As you all probably know, there’s been a huge ruckus lately on the listservs about her recent snarky comments about the rather silly New York Times article about how we’re now a “hipper crowd of shushers.” Well, duh. Haven’t you seen our tattoos? Anyway, the nexgen crowd got all huffy about AL’s bad attitude. For heaven’s sake. Can we add sense of humor to the requirements for an MLS degree? AL responded with characteristic caustic aplomb. Seriously, if you need a breath of bibliographic fresh air and a much needed laugh in the middle of the day, AL is much better than those sort of tiresome library comic strips. As long as one takes her opinions in the vein they are obviously meant – tongue firmly in cheek. I think.

OK, so my dilemma for the day is this. In my growing discomfort with unemployment, I’ve been applying for all Santa Fe jobs even tangentially related to my interests in data management, reference, and the organization of information. In other words, filing, receptionist, data entry, etc. It’s actually surprising how many directions I could take my experience, though none of them paying much more than minimum wage (WHY did I not become an accountant?). I got an interview today at a medical records office, and it went really well – well enough that I got a job offer. So now I have to decide if I will take it temporarily while I continue my professional job search. If I don’t get an offer, it’s infinitely better than temping. They know I’m finishing my degree, but I feel uncomfortable starting a job only to leave it almost immediately. Of course, as I lamented earlier, the job search could stretch months and years into the future. So any advice? I’d get my own office…

1 comment

Ooo, geez. That’s a hard one. I guess it comes down to: what’s more important, the perfect job, or the perfect location? I know it’s difficult to find a job with a specific location in mind, especially in library land. But you seem really set on that location, sooo….

I think my advice would be to take it. If worse comes to worse, you can leave it off a resume, but if you stay a decent amount of time (say, 6 months?) it would be good experience. And it could open up a whole new category of librarian jobs: medical library. (some of which pay pretty decent, from what I hear.)

Of course, this is dependent on whether you think you can stand the job, and whether it pays enough for you to live in Santa Fe. Why, oh why, does Santa Fe have to be so expensive?

If at all possible, I’d be as upfront as possible with them, saying that you’ll still be looking for jobs in your field, but those jobs are few and far between.